NEWS LETTER No
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SCIENCE FICTION MAY 1951 No. 20 NEWS LETTER CONVENTION BULLETIN READY ACKERMAN SAILS FOR EUROPE The first Issue of the Nolacon Bulletin, Forrest Ackerman and his wife, Wendayne, official news journal of the forthcoming 9th (of Los Angeles) sailed from New York in Science Fiction Convention, was published mid-April -for England and the continent. in early April. The convention committee has Ackerman plans to attend the first Europeon chosen the ST. Charles Hotel as headquarters Science - Fiction Convention which opens In and taken the Claiborne Room there for the London on May 10th. Afterwards, the couple three-day meeting. This year's conclave is will tour France, Germany and Switzerland, in New Orleans, over the Labor Day weekend. expecting to return to the States in July. In a report dated February 27th, the As far as is known, they are the only bulletin states the convention society has Americans attending the London affair, altho 129 members; and a treasurer's report dated one Canadian fan, Lyell Crane of Toronto, March l;th shows a balance of $163 in funds announced his intention of sailing. on hand. Membership "cards" made of tooled aluminum were mailed out with the bulletin. Late dispatches from London say Advertisements for the program booklet run the convention has grown to un to $6.50 per page, $5.50 per half-page, .§2 expected dimensions, forcing for a quarter-page, with booster adverts at the committee to abandon plans sixty cents each. The booklet will be multi- for housing the meeting at the lithed (similar to News Letter), and adver White Horse Inn. The response tisers may furnish pen-and-ink sketches with to convention publicity proved their copy. Deadline is August first. so great that a hall at the Royal Hotel (Bloomsbury, London) was booked. In addition to the St. Charles, seven The preliminary, informal sessions will open other nearby hotels and their room rates are at the White Horse, and move to the hotel listed, with the request that you make room over the week-end for the business sessions reservations as early as possible. These Walter Willis of Belfast. Northern Ireland are being handled by Emanuel Lashover, 2956 Is publishing the official program, Elysian Fields ave, New Orleans. The com mittee requests that all reservations be NEW BOK FOLIO mailed to him; while memberships, advertise ments, and all other matter concerning the A new portfolio of six Hannes Bok prints convention be sent to Harry Moore, 2705 Camp (most of which have never been published in st, New Orleans 1J, La. magazines) will be available soon at $3. Privately published, the folio will be sold As for transportation, Moore asks that only by Bok and his publisher. (Bok: PO Box drivers willing to share the ride, and non 157> Cathedral Station, New York City, 25.) drivers wanting rides, each contact him for effective liason. If traveling by train, Bok recently sold two covers, one each the Illinois Central from Chicago is the to MARVEL SCIENCE STORIES and OTHER WORLDS, fastest in the Mississippi Valley-- from 8 plus an Interior for a Poul Anderson yarn in the morning until midnight, same evening. upcoming in SUPER SCIENCE STORIES. Coming in from the west coast, the Southern Pacific "Sunset Limited" is the best bet-- a GOTHAM FANTASY WRITERS 50-hour trip but you have to fly to do less. Ken Beale (115 east Mosholu Parkway, Travelers from the east are due for the Bronx 67) advises that a Science-Fantasy worst and may as well face it: there is less Writers' Workshop is underway in New York, speed south of the Potomac. The fastest is after having been organized last fall. Group Southern Railway's "The Southerner," almost at present consists of six fans and writers, 28 hours from New York via way of Washington with membership open to any would-be writers and Atlanta. Another route, through Wash past their childhood. Beale states the mem ington and Cincinnati, requires 54 hours, bers are not a conventional writers' club although it is JOO miles shorter. nor a writing class. There are no dues. the leading newspaper of the science fiction world 2 The Russians are responsible for the bombing and they follow it with a full-scale invasion, taking the country very quickly. Poking around through the plot are a State Department man who seems to know the Russian plans exceedingly well, a hero who turns collaborationist to bore from within, and a pack of children who damned near wind up in the extermination chambers. Solution T-25 is the secret weapon to oust the Invaders, an encephalic dosage compounded in an under EVERY BOY’S BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION edited ground Florida laboratory. This novel, like by Donald Wollheim. (Frederick Fell, Inc., Judith Merril's of last year, is a fair ex New York City, 1951, $ 2.75) ample of the "outside" approach to science fiction, as opposed to that written by the Wollheim has here collected ten short long-experienced old hands. ~BT stories and novelettes for teen-agers, ten THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS by John Wyndham yarns which adequately suit their purpose, (Doubleday & Company, New York, 1951, $2.50) and ten yarns by the way that we adults read in the 1920's and 50's as adult fare. Here are Cummings' "The Gravity Professor, Bob "When a day that you happen to know is Olsen*s "The Four-Dimensional Roller-Press, Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday S.P. Wright's "The Infra-Medians," Dresser's -- there is something seriously wrong some "’White Army," Clifton Kruse' "Dr. Lu-Mie, where." These are the opening words of this novel (which was serialized in Colliers) and Keller's "The Living Machine," Ed Hamilton's "Conquest of Two Worlds," Simak's "Asteroid set the mood for a different, exciting tale. of Gold," Jack Williamson's "In the Scarlet Star," and Ray Bradbury’s "King of the Grey When William Masen woke up to a silent world that Wednesday morning, he knew some Spaces." I enjoyed this volume more than thing was amiss and quickly discovered the Wollheim's recent anthologies for adults. answer: with the apparent exception of him Take that as either an ironical commentary self, the entire world was blind. To compli on his editing or my taste. -BT cate this situation, the triffids came, giant man-eating plants. The problem is DREADFUL SANCTUARY by Eric Frank Russell unfolded in the two opening chapters, with (Fantasy Press, Reading, Pa. 195-t, ?2»75) the remainder of the book detailing the struggle between the triffids, the blind and "How do you know you're sane?" That was the sighted. A very good novel, fast-moving the big question in I9I+8, after Astounding and well-written, with a surprise ending . Wyndham is J. Beynon Harris. “MBW S-F published Russell's top-flight science mystery yarn. Remember the Norman Club, and THE ILLUSTRATED MAN by Ray Bradburv the discovery of just such a club in Toronto (Doubleday & Company, New York, 1951, ?2.75) during the convention that year? A companion volume to last year's By the year 1972, seventeen moon rockets THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, nearly equal had been shot into space with seventeen asp to but not the superior of that ear- erate explosions, always short of the goal. Her tome. In this book, eighteen Every factor was blamed, Including Russian WaSSnir shortstories (four of which are new) sabotage, until the Russians themselves made are tied together by means of an Illustrated and failed with the seventeenth. Armstrong, Man, an unemployed carnival worker who can a suspicious scientist, had a personal in not hold a job because his skin-pictures are terest in #18 and he took steps to protect living, moving things instead of ordinary the ship, steps which led him and a detect tatoos. No man will hire him when that man ive to the Norman Club where he was forced can see his own death pictured on the Illus to prove his sanity. In many ways this book trated Man's body. Bradbury, telling the will remind you of the author's earlier suc tale, watches and puts into words the eight cess, SINISTER BARRIER. A good one. -BT teen stories acted out on the Man's body as SOLUTION T-25 by Theodora DuBois he sleeps; and in the end he too flees, as he finds his own death scene forming. (Doubleday & Company, New York, 1951, The volume opens with "The Veldt," which Mrs. DuBois is a mystery writer, with a appeared in the SatEvePost as "The World the long career and many solid thrillers behind Children Made"; also included are The Other her; this book shows her craftsmanship and Foot," a sequel to the Negro rocket yarn of command of the written word, but the science last year-- the sequel puts the shoe on , the fan may raise an eyebrow at her command of other foot by bring a white man to the Negro the atomic bomb. In places it has too little world of Mars, and a very brief story of a power and in others, too much— as for in ■humble Mexican farmer who did not fear t h e stance the opening scene when a house tucked end of the world because he did not know the away in the woods is flattened by a bomb meaning of the city-dweller's expression. -falling on a distant city. And there is a For everyone but anti-Bradbury readers. -Bl certain carelessness with radiation.